Setting sail for uncharted spaces in the mid-to- late 60s, the first krautrock and kosmische pioneers harnessed sci-fi screeds, effects-laden technology and chemically-enhanced bursts of dazzling imagination. Ripples from those intrepid impulses are still keenly felt by legions of knob-twiddling musical cosmonauts, including Earthling Society’s Fred Laird. His love of that period is loudly and proudly referenced here as he dons his Moon Of Ostara alter-ego for the first time.
Wreathed in mystic cosmology, this continuous instrumental four-part suite is replete with an electronic aviary of twitterings, whoops, forlorn calls, and echoes of gothic Mellotron, underpinned by drummer Jon Blacow’s trancey ruminations.
The breezy Part 3 is the exception – a brisk run at a kind of post-punk pop, pushing away from the woozy, slo-mo cascade and tumble of the rest of the album, which is ultimately a likable but somewhat pedestrian set.
The krautrockers of yore looked forward, with no real interest in what had gone before. Arguably Laird’s work suffers from him having slavishly followed a well-trodden path, rather than setting out for new frontiers of his own.
